All Hail the King: Halcyon Days
by glenarvon
Summary: Jason Brody re-adapts badly to civilised society. He's fixing it.


**Introductionary Note:** A while ago, I started and abandoned a story called "All Hail the King". I've received a request to repost (I'm still amazed) the first chapter as a one-shot. Seeing as this _was_ initially a one-shot, the chapter stands easily on its own.

 **Warnings:** Violence, gore, mental fucked-up-ness and a character death. In short, it's Far Cry 3.

* * *

 _"It's too late to correct it," said the Red Queen: "when you've once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences."_

 _Through the Looking Glass, Louis Carroll_

* * *

 **All Hail the King: HALCYON DAYS**

 **by glenarvon**

* * *

He leaned his head into the glass of the window until he thought he could feel the resistance grinding all the way into his skull, the cool glass numbing a small patch of his brain. Outside, the grey dirt on grey walls was pitched nearly black in the darkness of the subway tunnel, blurring together as it rushed past.

He had lost his driver's license two weeks before to a reckless driving charge, forcing him to ride the metro to work and back. Liza had thought she did him a service when she made him promise to take it seriously, instead of just driving anyway, as he would have done. In truth, the quiet moments when he was locked in the limbo of the train ride just gave him more time to think. Or rather, more time for his thoughts to run in circles.

Liza had made him go to a shrink, too, but he had managed only a few sessions. The thing was, he didn't _feel_ insane, which probably was one of the first clues that he must be. There were no nightmares, no flashbacks, just a low-level anxiety dogging him through his days. He was tense, always tense, still waiting for that bullet to the back of the head, the knife on his throat, or the low thud as a grenade landed much too close.

The city streets were not the same thing, even if LA wasn't the safest city in the world by any stretch of the imagination. No one here would give him a fight.

For a few, brief days after coming home, he had tried, _truly_ tried to find himself again, to be who he had been before Rook Islands. He had made an effort, for his mother and on his brother's grave and to make amends to Riley for hurting him in Hoyt's basement. He had tried to fix things with Liza, somehow, but he didn't know where to even start.

She wanted to talk, but that didn't help. Their memories didn't match, the colours were all wrong, distorting the truth. He had thought she had seen him, at some point earlier on, but for her, Rook was a fever dream and it evaporated when they came home. So they went through the motions of trying to repair what was left of their relationship and were, both of them, almost relieved when they failed and had an excuse to let each other go.

They still kept in touch. At least, Liza would call him and talk and he would listen, mind wandering off despite himself.

He had tried. Tried to sometimes ask Keith how he was doing. Tried to take Ollie to the beach and keep him sober for a day. Tried to support Daisy by going to her competitions. Tried to take an interest in Riley's career.

Tried.

Failed.

Probably. Didn't quite manage to care.

The truth was, they had all come back changed and they had all thought they could pretend otherwise, slip back into their old lives and their old selves. Reclaim everything and pick up where they had left off. They all failed in their own way and each other's presence was just another reminder of how broken they had become.

Jason himself, he went back to drifting. Like before, obviously, but he was under no more illusions. He had no patience anymore for most of the jobs he would have jumped at before. He was too on edge, too angry still and his body seemed to be running at higher revolutions than others, craving more than just a sedate gym workout.

Keith had got him work as a bouncer, but it was ill-fitting at the best of times. At first glance, it made a kind of sense. There was at least _some_ violence and he wouldn't have to bother with being nice. On second glance, however, Jason learned quickly that you didn't get hired as a bouncer because you could kill half a dozen men in under a minute. You got hired because you looked intimidating to _prevent_ violence from breaking out in the first place. He didn't have that kind of looks and there were too few people here who would know how to read what was in his eyes.

He could tell his boss was working up to firing him, it was just a question of time. And then? Ah, well, and then something else would come along.

The train stopped harshly in the station and his head bounced, once, on the glass, jolting him briefly from his thoughts. He cast a long glance around the carriage. It was late, but not so late partygoers made an effort to get the last ride home and the carriage was mostly empty. A group of drunken teenagers had got on and slouched into a corner.

He paid them no heed, looked away from the glare of the neon lights and back into the black outside, accelerating as the metro picked up speed. He wondered what it'd be like to smash into that merciless concrete wall, head on and without brakes.

* * *

It starts.

 _Hey, you, wimpy-looking dude, you got some cash on you?_

It doesn't immediately register. He'll answer to a great many things, but this one doesn't stick, goes right by him as he walks along the edge of the platform for the exit. The lights briefly dim, then come back at full strength. It seems the more interesting observation.

He still picks out the footsteps on the tiles behind him, catching up. All that's missing is the low growl of a wolf-pack as it advances on him, stalking him.

 _Hey!_

Close by his ear and one of the teenagers steps in front of him, blocking his way, grinning. He has seen better bloodlust in rabid dogs, this is just a weak imitation of madness.

But he's starved, perhaps a little, and something flares in his throat at the recognition. And he thinks he should be conflicted about it. He lowers his head demurely and steps around the kid. Knows, already, he won't be allowed. There is no instinct here, they knew shit about the jungle, after all.

 _Where the hell you think you're going, princess?_

And another, _Got some cash? Because you better hand it over._

And another, just laughing.

And the last, the mistake, closing in bodily from the front and the side, boxing him in. He tilts his head, meets the gaze of the nearest kid plaintively. His vision seems to sharpen, it almost hurts his mind in its clarity.

His heart beats hard, like its the first time in a long while it moved at all.

A hand goes for the collar of his jacket, tucks derisively and the leer becomes a little better in the face of Jason's misleading passivity.

 _Do you think he's going to try to fight us?_

Laughter and another hand, going for his shoulder from behind. _Seriously?_

The violence kicks in, sudden and sharp. So much of it, a _tide_ of it crashing around his ears.

He catches the hand and twists it, throws his body in it and hears the low, grinding ugly crush of breaking bone. The scream that follows barely registers. Another comes at him, enraged and so suddenly so scared — he can _smell_ it on them — but with some small measure of skill.

Not enough, not nearly enough as the lights flicker again. And Jason brings them both around, like a dance, but faster and cut brutally short. He crawls a hand up along the kid's neck, through gelled hair and along shivering tendons.

He holds him and then he crashes him into the unyielding solidity of a pillar. It takes a lot to smash a human skull in. Tough motherfuckers, really. The kid begins to scream, but it gargles away in a wailing sob as his mouth fills with blood. He falls away from the pillar and into Jason.

Jason picks him back up and he goes limp in his hands, body already twitching from some brain damage. Jason smashes him into the pillar again, once, twice to the wet crunching of bone on cracking tile, until the skull finally gives way and the smattering, spraying blood is joined by thick pieces of brains.

The sobbing stops and the kid is deadweight in his hands, smelling no longer of fear but sickly sweet blood and sour urine.

Jason steps to the side, where he sees nothing but a shadow and puts his boot to somebody's knee and brings his elbow down on his neck. Someone else makes a last-ditch useless grip for his arm from behind and he simply snaps his head back, feels his vision jar and blur at the impact, sending a pleasantly sharp ripple of pain through his skull to settle behind his eyes.

It doesn't matter. Pain cannot stop him, can only fuel his anger and he hasn't felt the blood rush in his body in far too long. Dimly, he thinks he should stop. He should not straddle this kid's chest and beat his fist into his face, cutting his knuckles on his teeth as he wails.

He should, at the very least, meet _some fucking resistance._

The other rabid dogs beat a hasty retreat, too shocked and frightened to even scream as they run from the station, stumbling on the steps as if the devil was hot on their heels.

But the devil only sits back as his second victim stops its ridiculous struggles. He leans his head back, feels like he's drunk or high or just got off. Released. So fucking good you wouldn't believe.

It ends, and blood is running down his face and wets his lips.

* * *

Later.

The cop looked up from his notepad to study Jason across its rim. Something was on his mind, quite obviously, turning slowly as he tried to put it into words. He gave a short glance down the length of the metro station where the paramedics were still working.

"Have you, uh, had any combat experience?" the cop asked as he looked back at Jason.

Jason considered the question. Considered _lying,_ in the face of a fairly obvious truth. "Yes," he said.

He didn't know what had prompted the teenagers to pick on him of all the people who had left the train at the same station. There had been a middle-aged couple and a scrawny elderly man and a group of three young women. All of them, soft targets.

"What sort of experience?"

Earlier, a paramedic had put a blanket over Jason's shoulder before hurrying back to help the others. All in all, Jason didn't think it had been that bad. He looked at the cop, watched him fidget and try to hide it, uncomfortable by the carnage just at the edge of his field of vision.

Jason decided to throw him a bone, "I was on the news."

It took the cop a long minute before the connection finally clicked through. Half a year was more than enough for the headlines to fade from memory. It changed all their life, but for the overwhelming majority of people on the planet, it remained another piece of irrelevant drivel.

"Ah, yeah, Jason Brody, I remember. That hostage thing, right?"

Just one dead man. More a kid, really, and too stupid to tell predator from prey when you were looking right into the beast's eyes. These kids had never been a challenge for couldn't even call it a _fight_ without laughing.

A joke, come of think of it. Funny ha ha, and brain splattered over the dirty tiles of a metro station.

"Yeah," Jason said. The blanket was slipping from his shoulders and he couldn't decide if he should bother to keep a hold of it. He put his chin forward, indicating the paramedics, or his victim, or all of this sorry scene.

"What'll happen?" he asked.

"Don't worry, sir," the cop said, jumping to conclusions without any prompting. "Sounds like pretty obvious self-defence to me. Show up tomorrow to sign your statement."

"Is he going to live?"

The cop looked back over his shoulder again and his skin took on a slightly greener hue. Or it could be just the angle of the light as it changed. You could never tell, with these civilised people. They got queasy over the strangest things.

"Hard to tell, sir," the cop said, mistaking Jason's question for actual concern. "Do you have someone you can call?"

Why would he…? Ah, right. "Yeah."

For some reason, the answer didn't seem to satisfy the cop. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Self-defence, right?"

* * *

He had barely two days before the story hit the tabloids. The headlines were a little unsure of the details and seemed to be making most of it up as they went along. Certainly no journalist had yet bothered to track him down and interview him, but he wasn't sure if that was because they didn't care or because he had managed to hide himself from their view.

In the beginning, it _had_ been a good enough story for the newspapers and all the other media. The hostages had even made national television, albeit briefly. Enough for his name to still ring a bell to the cop and enough to warrant another article or two. Innocent people being beaten up happened and every so often, these punks picked the wrong target and got their ass handed to them. It _happened._ Even so, he probably was the most minor of minor celebrities and he could have done even without that much attention.

 _"Are you all right?"_ Liza's voice came faintly. The phone was askew, wedged between his head and the wall of his tiny balcony so he had his hands free to roll a joint.

"Sure."

There was a brief moment of silence while she tried to figure out how to say next what she would inevitably _say next._

Sex hadn't worked. That was, it _had_ worked in getting him off. It didn't do what he wanted it to, though. Didn't get rid of his anger, didn't calm his nerves, it didn't set him free _._ But Jason was still young enough and possibly juvenile enough and a child of the media generation, to think that it _might_. It had a lot going for it, after all. It could be like in the movies, like he was a game character on some self-destructive, but ultimately stylish streak. It was easy enough to picture it, all darkly romantic like. It had been surprisingly easy to pick up some girl or other, too. _Much_ easier than it used to be, almost as if the fact that he wouldn't much care either way made all the difference.

 _"I read one of the attackers died,"_ Liza finally said. _"And another is in the hospital and they don't know if he'll pull through."_

"I'm surprised the press got that much right."

The girls he had known, including Liza, they had been different. _Real_ people, with their own stories and their own names. This time, names were a hazy thing, heard only once and immediately forgotten like their faces, or perhaps they just looked different in the morning. Either way, he felt pretty much just as empty when they left as he had the night before when they'd hooked up.

 _"What happened?"_ she asked.

He lit up, fished the phone from where it threatened to slip down his neck and leaned back in his flimsy lawn-chair, settling his legs up on the balustrade.

"They were just dumb kids harassing people on the metro," he said, inhaled deeply and got barely a tingle for his troubles. Fucking weak shit. Where the hell did Ollie get his good stuff from?

 _"You killed them."_

The accusation was heavy, crawling out of the speaker.

He had picked up a guy, too, just once, to see if maybe it'd be different. Or rather, the other way around. Some dude had picked _him_ up and Jason had only shrugged. It had even seemed like a good idea for maybe five minutes, until it had clicked through his not entirely sober brain that sex was sex and sex _wasn't working._

It was never a fight. It was never even a _contest._

"One of them," he corrected mellowly.

There wasn't anything like a sky visible above, just a diffuse glare caught in the smog and the rather academic assurance of something more beyond its thick layer.

"The cops said it was self-defence," he added for Liza's benefit.

 _"God, Jason,"_ Liza said. _"You don't even care, do you? You killed someone!"_

She was right about one thing, let's give her that: he didn't care. He had saved them, all of them — except Grant, of course — but their gratitude had run out long ago.

"Next time, I'll let them beat me up," Jason agreed. He lacked the energy to put much vitriol in his voice, too much effort for too little gain.

 _"That's not what it's about,"_ Liza insisted, but he wasn't quite sure of it. _"It's that you still behave like you're fighting some damn guerrilla war. I don't know the details, but I know you didn't need to kill anyone. But I think you wanted to. And you don't have to do that anymore, you are_ home."

The pot dulled the jagged edges of his mind and the thoughts spun slower. There was still the sense of urgency, a drive to be somewhere else than here, do something other than lean through the chair into the wall, but for once it was fine to just wait it out for a little while.

"Look, Liz, I don't know what you want me to say."

He was pretty sure he had already said everything he thought might work a gazillion times before. He had started saying this stuff on Daisy's fucking boat, when Rook wasn't even completely out of sight yet.

 _"Is that a serious question?"_ she asked, still concerned still, somehow too close to him to just leave him behind. But she was angry, too. _"You need help, Jason, you don't have to do it all on your own."_

"Is this about the shrink again?"

She had expected that, he could tell, but her displeasure still came through loud and clear. Or would have, but the joint was doing its job better than he had hoped.

 _"There are plenty of other psychiatrists out there. Better ones."_

"I don't need any help," he said. "Not that kind of help."

 _"What's that supposed to mean?"_

He took a long, last drag of the joint and chased the feeling of the smoke as it burned down his throat and into his lungs. He closed his eyes.

 _"Jason?"_

He snapped his eyes back open. The glare of the city had changed, it had gained texture and it's own beat, an oversized heart made of smoke, bleeding for the city below.

"I'm going back," he said and Liza was silent.

No doubt she was just as surprised by it as he was. He didn't even know where that had come from. It wasn't like he had ever even _considered…_ What if it was as easy as that? He could shake off this ill-fitting life like a dog coming in from the rain.

For a moment, the thought made him feel giddy in the rush of it. His whole body pulled tight in the anticipation of action. He wanted to go, right now, be on the plane in an hour.

He pulled another deep breath and reminded himself things were never quite so easy. There was no telling how welcoming the Rakyat would be. And neither would drug-trafficking and slaving in the South Pacific have come to a standstill just because two psychos had found exactly the ending they deserved. Someone would have slipped in to fill their shoes.

 _"You can't,"_ Liza whispered. Her voice was thin, came from much further away than she could possibly be.

Jason wanted to laugh, but didn't, Liza would just think he was crazy. All this time, all these ludicrous attempts to make himself fit in again when the answer had been right in front of him the whole time.

"It solves all our problems," he pointed out reasonably. "You don't have to worry about me and I… right, let's face it, I don't fit here anymore."

 _"You think I don't have to worry if you go back there?"_

"Well, no," he said slowly. He watched the smoke dance in front of his eyes. This was actually better stuff than he had thought. It made him feel calm, at least in the aftermath of his decision. Things seemed set already, carved in stone. He would go back.

He said, "But you wouldn't have to worry about me going on a killing spree."

This time, he did laugh, but he'd be the first to admit it came out as a mirthless chortle. It ruined the smoke ring he had been about to blow.

His words or his laugh had rendered Liza momentarily speechless. He took another drag and blew out a perfect circle of smoke, watched as it slowly dissipated in front of him.

 _"I'm sorry, Jason,"_ Liza said.

"What?" he asked mildly. "Nothing to be sorry about. It's fine, Liz, I promise."

 _"It's not_ fine," she insisted and her voice locked up suddenly at the end. " _You can't go back. It's safe here._ You _are safe here. You don't have to… do these things anymore. Why don't you understand that?"_

He lifted his hand before his face and let the smoke crawl down its length from the glowing tip of the joint in front of him. It was just bright enough to see the edge of the tatau on his arm.

"You've got it backwards," he said, barely speaking to her at all. "I don't want to be safe. It makes me feel weak. Like I'm useless. Stagnating."

 _Like I'm dying without a fight and that's a shitty end for a warrior._

Something rustled on the other end of the line, clothing most likely as she moved and when she spoke again, Liza seemed to have collected herself. Her voice had lost its strange shivering, instead it was laced with determination.

 _"Are you home? I'm coming over, I'm…"_

His feet hit the ground with a force that echoed all the way up through his shins and into his knees. The faint pain shook him back into reality, wiping away some of the lull the joint had wrapped him in.

"No," he said sharply. "No, really, don't. Are you even listening? I've got it under control. It's going to be nice and gentle. I'll say my goodbyes to mom and Riley and the others." He paused for a moment. He could still hear her moving on the other end. "Or I'll leave tonight," he finished and finally she seemed to stop.

It was too easy to picture her pretty face as it pulled a displeased grimace. Shit all he could do about it, though. He really didn't want her trying to talk him out of it. He didn't think there was any way at all to get his reasons across to her. He wouldn't be able to make her see and he wasn't really in the mood to try. It _was_ the solution he had been looking for for a good six months, but it wasn't the solution she had wanted. .

 _"You said you wanted to be better,"_ Liza insisted. _"Was that for nothing?"_

 _Yes,_ he caught himself thinking, but managed to keep it to himself. It wasn't all of the truth, either. It all depended, really, how you were looking at things. He _was_ a pretty shitty human being. If he was conflicted at all, it was because there _was_ no conflict. He could _act out_ guilt and regret and sorrow over the blood on his hands, he even had himself convinced for a little while of his own remorse. It worked, right up until something happened that scraped it away, a thin layer of useless paint. Certainly, the kid in the metro station hadn't _deserved_ to die just for being a stupid dipshit. He deserved to die for picking a fight with him, however. Tagged-on regret wasn't going to help anyone.

He ground his teeth together, flexing his left hand and chased the slow-burning ache in his sinews all the way into his fingertips, all of them, even the imaginary one.

"Liz," he said quietly and the sound of his own voice was like the distant rumbling of thunder. A growl of old, of another self, of the waking hunter. "Do you even know how easily I could've killed you?"

 _"Jason…"_

He closed his eyes, but the glow beat through his eyelids in bloody red. He needed her off his back, he needed her at peace somehow. If she ended up hating him in the process, it was a small price to pay.

"Or how much I wanted to?" he added, not because it was a lie, but because she still didn't understand the first thing about him and she never would. None of them did. It was strange, to sit here and realise, for the first time with any hint of clarity, just how broken he was. Broken, but not fallen apart for some reason. He remembered the things he should do, the things he should _be._ If he thought hard enough, perhaps he'd even figure out how to glue himself together.

But, _god,_ he sometimes dreamed of Liza's white throat in the firelight, glistening with cold sweat, her rapid pulse outlined, her panicked breathing and the endless string of pleas falling from her lips. He still didn't quite know why Citra would force such a choice on him, how she could be so right about him about so many things and still get that one thing so completely wrong.

 _"I don't know what to say,"_ Liza whispered on the other end of the line. He had almost forgotten she was there. _"I don't think I can help you."_

"That's the problem," he pointed out. He finished the joint and its glow faded away, the smoke left to poison the beating heart above the city. "I don't need any _helping_. I need you to let me go. That's what'd help me."

He listened to her breathing, but wasn't sure if she was crying or not. Only when she spoke and her voice cracked so badly, could he be sure.

 _"I'm going to hang up, Jason. Goodbye."_

She didn't hang up, though, only was silent for the longest time until he held the phone in front of his face and cut the connection like severing an umbilical cord.

* * *

Another two days later and the cops picked him up. Ostensibly just to ask some questions, but he already knew it wasn't going to be good when they also searched his apartment, pocketed his weed and confiscated his computer, phone and camera.

The camera. The camera was going to be bad. His trusty fucking camera, which had done its service as impromptu binoculars. It documented their holiday in tasteless party fashion, when they had all still been innocent — or alive for that matter. The memories of better days, preserved and never looked at again since.

But there were other pictures on there and they told a different story. Jason had used the camera to map pirate outposts before he took them and there were the occasional _after_ pictures, too, from before the Rakyat came to clean up the mess and the bodies still lay where they had fallen, shot or gutted or burned, posing for his triumph. He had pictures of dead sharks and skinned tigers and scattered body parts on the beach at sunset.

"…frankly, it's a little disturbing," the detective was saying from across the table, scrolling through the pictures on the camera more for show than anything, pretending she was seeing them for the first time to get a rise out of him.

She would have to wait a little longer for it, though, because he was barely paying attention to her. He was busy backtracking through the twisting paths of his own mind and memory, looking for the mistake that had landed him here in the first place.

It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for the cops to launch an investigation of his activities now. There had been a couple of tense moments right after their return, but nothing on this scale. Everyone had treated them either as poor victims or heroic, well, _heroes_ for escaping the way they had. They weren't under suspicion for anything, at least not as far as Jason knew.

"Does that silent and stoic thing work for you?" the detective asked and actually managed to gain his attention momentarily. At some point, she had put the camera away to focus entirely on him.

He met her gaze calmly and she said, "Tell me again about the incident in the metro station."

"I got harassed by a bunch of kids."

She arched an eyebrow delicately, "And you bash one of their skulls in and put another in a coma."

"Your colleague said it was self-defence."

"It technically is. We've got enough witnesses that say so," she agreed. "But in context with your history and the pictures on your cam, well… And let's not forget your unsteady lifestyle. You lost your driver's licence. You take drugs. You just quit the fourth job you've had since you got back from Thailand. You stopped seeing a psychologist so I'm guessing whatever trauma you sustained has gone untreated."

He could tell what she was getting it, it was practically written in flaming letters between them, but for some reason she preferred to keep playing. When her jab at his presumed traumatised state failed to get a rise out of him, she launched for another angle.

"You booked a flight to Bangkok," she said.

"Yes," he agreed. And right about now, he wished he could have found an earlier one, or that he hadn't promised to show up at his mother's for dinner tonight. He could be long gone by now, but since he was still here, he would have to put on a better show than this. He pulled himself together, looked back at the detective and attempted a vague smile. "I'm going on vacation. Like I'm, you know, a normal person."

"It's one-way to an interesting destination"

"I don't know how long I'll be staying and I still have friends there."

He shook his head, managed to pin her with his gaze and shut her up just long enough to derail her entire, planned line of questioning.

"Look," he said reasonably, "I agreed to answer your questions, didn't I? You didn't charge me with anything and that pot, Jesus, just fine me and be done with it. In other words, I guess I can go whenever I like. Unless there is something you want to share with me?"

She pulled a face as if she felt the sudden, blinding onset of a terrible migraine and knew exactly who to blame for it. She picked over her words carefully, like chewing on a mouthful of pebbles when she said, "There is some indication that you might pose a danger to others as well as yourself."

And the cat was out of the bag. It really left only the question who had put it there in the first place.

Jason leaned forward, hunter instinct telling him just how far to go so she felt the threat, but couldn't act on it. He dropped his voice just a little and put a rough emphasis on every word. " _Are_ you charging me with something?"

She had tensed when he moved, alarmed but didn't seem nearly as intimidated as she should be. Civilised people, they never knew what stared them in the face.

"No," she admitted. "But you won't be needing that ticket, I'm afraid. Please don't leave the city. We'll be keeping your things, of course. And you'll be fined for possession."

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, clearly frustrated by his refusal to follow her script. He wasn't quite sure _what_ she had expected of him, though, that he'd lose it right in front of her? Attack her and validate her suspicions for her?

He took his leave smiling, but only because he needed to show his teeth. The liberation he had felt at his decision, the assurance of the ticket in his pocket, all of it shot to hell. From one moment to the next he had been pinned down like he was a particularly rare butterfly. He could feel the needles buried through his muscles and the only thing was missing was the glass display.

* * *

Liza isn't alone when he shows up on her doorstep — a gaggle of girls, lined up on the couch with paper in their hands — but he pays them no attention as he crowds Liza backward step by step into her own living room. Ground, once given, he wasn't going to let her reclaim.

 _"What_ have you done?" he snarls through his teeth, quietly, for her ears only, as intimate as anything he's ever said to her.

She still doesn't understand him, doesn't know what it is she sees and fears in him and he will never figure out how she can be so blind. She was on Rook with him, wasn't she? She was there and smelled the air and tasted the drugs. She's seen the horrors, she was at Vaas' mercy, what mercy there was. How can she be here, now, and look at him with this perfect incomprehension?

It's all he can do to give her the moment of doubt before he puts the knife back to her throat, where it should have stayed six months ago.

The hint of false security she needs to tell the others to leave them alone. Jason sees the doubt in their eyes and already knows the one who will call the cops and whose statement will be the most damning. Not everyone will mistake him for harmless on first look, after all. He misses the time and place when _no one_ would. The place where he is a fairytale name. And all fairytales are horror stories.

But one step after another. He needs to finish this. She has set him up for this, like Citra did before, like predestination. You can think you cheated fate, but fate's a bitch and it'll never forget where you live.

"What I had to," Liza says as the girls leave. And she believes it, too. She still thinks she is saving him from himself, from hell and all its demons. She still thinks she wants to love him if only she'd get through to him.

Well, she is through now, has his attention, all of it. And the knife he stole and the gloves he put on before he knocked at her door. For whatever it'll be worth, the time it will buy him. He has to remember that this isn't his home turf, he doesn't make the rules in this place, he'll have to keep his head down and retreat before he can be cornered. Here, he cannot stand and fight it out.

He's been quick to place the blame on Liza, but it's not until she confesses it that his mind truly settles. He _has_ come to kill her, but there still were residues of loyalty and emotion. She didn't _need_ to make herself his enemy. He sort of wishes she hadn't.

"You betrayed me," he says.

Her eyes are wide on him, large enough so he can almost see his reflection in them.

"You need help," Liza insists in the face of her doom as if she hasn't recognised what is about to happen. "And you won't let me help you. So when they lock you up, you'll have no choice."

Can her instincts be truly this bad? Is she this trusting? She just keeps on talking and what she's saying makes less sense as she goes on.

"Maybe, when you can think clearly again, you'll understand," she shakes her head sadly. "And forgive me, too."

Her regret runs true, he can tell and it stills his hand for a moment, where it is slipping around the hilt of the knife. It is only a moment, though, he is too eager for the blade and the hilt's weight is welcome and familiar.

"No," he says, very quietly. It sounds almost sad, something breaking at the back of his throat to spill the bitter taste of regret on his tongue. It is all she will have, however, because the moment she realises the real reason why he's looking at her the way he does, his hands are already on her.

She flails desperately at first before she remembers her self-defence courses and tries to twist free, choking his name in invocation. She makes them both crash into her couch table and she is too slow to roll away from him before he buries her under his weight. Her legs kick out uselessly and he catches her arms and pins them among the shattered debris of the table.

"Jason," she wheezes. "Stop! What are you doing?"

He tilts his head and looks down on her. Pulls himself up to straddle her, leans back to finally pull the knife from its sheath at his back, hidden under his shirt until now.

When she sees the weapon, she begins to struggle again and it is as useless as it was before. He is too strong and too heavy and hasn't left her even with one advantage. There is something almost erotic in the way she writhes, held between his legs as she is. Sensual.

"Forgive you?" he asks, puts all the bitterness into it. "Why should I?"

The knife dances in his hand elegantly as he turns it, aligns the weapon with his forearm and the blade with her throat. It's different than before, the angle is new and this knife is unadorned and insignificant. It'll never be the same thing, he knows that. It'll not bring Citra back or change the months he's wasted trying to be something he is not.

It'll be good enough.

She heaves in a last-ditch attempt to shake him off, but all she achieves is to nick herself on the blade, cause a tiny cut in the vulnerable skin of her throat. It can't possibly hurt that much, but from one moment to the next, the fight goes out of her and she lies limply beneath him. Even her face settles into a simulacrum of composure.

"God, Jason," she whispers. "I'm so sorry. I don't… I… you don't have to do this. I know you think you have to… but that's just… just the madness. Jason? It's not too late. You can…"

"You sold me out," he points out, quietly at first, before the rage suddenly breaks through. "YOU BETRAYED ME! Everything I did for you and you can't even give me _one_ fucking thing I need!"

A tiny drop of spittle flies from his teeth and lands on her cheek. She turns her head away. Silent tears overflow from her eyes finally.

He feels the tension in her body, the force of will it takes her to look back at him. She's wrong. It's too late to turn back. It was too late too long ago.

"Jason, please," she sobs. "Please, I lo-"

The knife sinks into her skin, makes it split open along its length. There is a moment, the briefest of an instance when the gap is there already, but before the pressure of the blood breaks through.

He presses through it. Liza twitches and shivers, the muscles of her arms strain against his hold. In dying, she musters more strength than some of the pirates he's killed, he'll give her that.

The moment breaks and her throat gapes wide, gushing blood to the rapid rhythm of her stuttering heart, dousing him. It's always surprised him just how much blood a body can hold.

He saws the blade through, then reaches up and presses against her forehead with the palm of his hand, putting her head back a little. The skin at her throat tears a little wider. He leans over her, face to face, close enough to kiss her lips as she keeps mouthing his name.

He looks into her eyes. He hasn't often stayed long enough with a victim to see their eyes as they die. In a way, he thinks, he has never seen death as it happens. He has always been on the run, always after another victim to truly watch.

This time, he stays until the last spasm stops.

* * *

The containers were stalked skyscraper high, creating neatly ordered, perfectly straight avenues to shape an oversized chessboard, mostly automatised for maximum efficiency.

Jason had barely encountered anyone as he made his way through the port. The weather was with him, windy and cool enough his drawn hoodie drew much less attention than his face would, though in all fairness, he was still just paranoid about it.

The cops were chasing random leads and it was only half a day ago that he walked away from Liza's apartment, not long enough for serious suspicions to arise. Once they did, he had no way of knowing just how quickly fingers would point to him or how bad the manhunt would be.

He hated the thought of being prey.

On the phone, earlier, Riley had said: _Are you crazy? Like, actually really crazy?_

Of course, Riley didn't know about Liza, he only knew Jason was having some trouble with an insistent police detective and that he would have to skip dinner.

No one yet knew about Liza, but the look in her eyes haunted him. Her voice whispered at the back of his head, as adamant as she had ever been in real life. Mistake, she said, it was a mistake. Why not let it go? Why not just walk away? Why cut your ties so bloodily?

Why. _Why._ Like it wasn't even a question, but a challenge thrown at his feet and clinging to his boots, leaving a stinking trail behind wherever he went. If the cops got the bloodhounds, they'd have no trouble finding him.

It had been different in Citra's temple, his blood pulsed hotter in his veins and his thoughts had had a clarity they never quite seemed to achieve in LA. He couldn't go to eat with his mother and brother with Liza's corpse barely cold. He couldn't even picture meeting either of their gazes ever again.

"The fuck you doing here?"

A man with a clipboard stood by a stack of crates, all marked with a 'fragile' sign. Workers scurried back and forth, loading the cargo.

"I'm looking for a Captain Durmer," Jason said.

"Why?"

"I want to hire on."

The man eyed him, then laughed. "That's not how it works, boy."

"I got his name from a guy called Lyle Bentall, he said Durmer could help me out."

"Lyle's a cunt."

Jason just looked back at the man, studied him in turn. Not overly tall, once strongly muscled but putting on bulk with advancing age. Clever eyes, though and an ironic twist at the corners of his mouth. Someone used to be taken seriously.

"You Durmer?" Jason asked.

"And what if?" the man shrugged. He waved with his clipboard. "Leg your way out of here, boy, and find yourself a cruise ship."

"Can you help me out?"

"Lyle's a cunt," Durmer repeated as if it was a pretty good explanation for anything.

Lyle had been a regular at the club where Jason had worked. A bit of a sleazy guy, a small-time criminal trying to play the big game. No doubt he'd eventually turn up somewhere belly-up. Not least of all because he had a habit of talking when drunk.

"I need to get out of the country," Jason said.

Durmer laughed again. "What'd you do? Wet the bed at night?"

The nearest two workers heard the joke and laughed, too, but without interrupting their work. Jason tilted his head a little in their direction. He had mapped the area before coming here and he knew there were six workers handling the crates. Three were up on the ship on this side. Even assuming they were all armed — only Durmer himself carried a gun, it's weight obvious under his sweatshirt and only one other worker had a knife strapped to his leg under his trousers — Jason could probably take them all out before anyone realised something was wrong. It wouldn't _help_ him, but it was something to put in his expression. The thought of _I could kill you at any time if I wanted to._

"I can pay," Jason said, otherwise ignoring the joke and the insult it contained. "And work."

The money was mostly Ollie's. Or rather, Ollie's parents' who thought giving him _more_ would somehow be the same as care. Or a hug. Or whatever it was Ollie actually needed instead of money and pot. Ollie had been shovelling some of it Jason's way ever since they'd come back, knowing Jason was having a hard time of it.

Durmer eyed him again. "It's not so easy. You aren't, say, a USB stick. I can't just keep you in my pocket when customs combs the ship. And I can't _hire_ you. The company does that and they'd run a background check on you. I'm guessing that wouldn't be a good idea."

"Depends on how quickly they do it," Jason said. "Two days from now? Not so good."

"Right," Durmer nodded. "And it's not like they'd choke up the dough for an untried hand, anyway."

"Sound like you could need a hand, though."

"Not so big on the _untried_ thing, son."

Son. Jason took it as a good sign. He glanced past Durmer and up the bulk of the freighter. His close experience with ships was unlikely to endear him to Durmer. He looked back at the captain. "Can't we work out something?"

A pair of workers came close to them, lifting the last crate and one of them said, "Yeah, come on, Cap'n, do it for Tate. He'll have a use for his skinny ass."

Durmer gave him a hard look and the worker shut up, carried off the crate.

Durmer said, "That's not the deal you want, trust me."

"It's not the deal Tate wants, either," Jason agreed. He looked over the ship again. "What if I'm just a stowaway? It's a big ship and I'm good at hiding. And if customs find me, you play dumb. If they don't find me, I'll work _and_ pay."

Durmer frowned. Looked Jason up and down again, considering for the longest time. Jason could see the thoughts working their way through his thoughts. Durmer suspected good money and was loathe to let it go. He didn't like Lyle but trusted him. He thought Tate was going to make a meal out of Jason and Durmer didn't want to have to handle the fallout. He was worried Jason would spend the entirety of the journey being sick over the side of the ship.

Durmer took a deep breath. "We'll try it," he said. "Where'd you wanna go anyway?"

"Bangkok would be good, but anywhere in the general area will be fine."

"We are making port in Singapore, I'm afraid that's the closest you'll get on this round."

"I can handle myself," Jason said.

Durmer didn't quite believe him, but let it go. He glanced at his watch. "We're leaving in three hours and… exactly eight minutes. You're here then, we'll take you along. Don't forget to bring the money."

Jason nodded. He pulled the hoodie deeper into his face and tucked his hands away in the pockets of his jeans as he walked away. Three hours was good, enough to grab his stuff — not like he needed a whole lot — and make his way back.

It was unlikely Liza would have been discovered already and with any luck, he'd be out in international waters before the shit hit the fan, even if he was somehow tracked to the freighter.

He had fixed it, in the end. He had made Citra's sacrifice, too little and too late perhaps, but he hoped the Raykat would accept it as the gesture it was. With Liza's death, Rook was the only place he could call home. He couldn't stay in LA, in the lives of the people he still cared about and he would never be forgiven.

* * *

 _"Jason, what the fuck? All hell is loose here! Where the hell are you?"_

The satellite phone provided a bad connection and Riley's voice came distorted and distant, lag creating odd moments of silence.

"I'm gone," Jason said. He was leaning his hip into the edge of the console on the bridge, half-turned away for a modicum of privacy.

 _"Gone? What the…? Did you hear about Liza? Where_ are _you?"_

There was a long pause, Jason said nothing, he knew he wouldn't have to. He didn't really want to say it aloud, either.

 _"Oh shit,"_ Riley concluded. _"Oh shit oh shit oh shit. You… fucking… you didn't! That's not…!"_

"Tell mom I'm sorry," Jason interrupted softly. "It's the best I can do."

 _"Fuck you, Jason. I mean it:_ Fuck _you."_

"It _is_ fucked."

 _"Fucked?"_ Riley hissed. _"Understatement of the motherfucking century! Jason, what the hell happened to you?"_

For a long moment, silence reigned, broken only by the static crackling. Lost in thought Jason looked around the bridge. There had been a "scuffle" the day before and he felt like he had shown remarkable restraint in not breaking all their necks. As it was, Tate and his little group of cronies seemed a whole lot more demure today, none of them meeting his gaze.

"I hit the ground," he said.

* * *

 _End of All Hail the King: Halycon Days_


End file.
